


quite fond of stars

by neptunedemon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Abduction, Alien!Viktor, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Cosmic Pining, M/M, Professor!Yuuri, Romance, Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-15 23:46:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21261596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neptunedemon/pseuds/neptunedemon
Summary: There's a place in the universe Yuuri can't quite reach, but thank the stars that someone reaches back.





	quite fond of stars

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Isekai: Another World almost a year ago. We were allowed to post our works a few months back but here I am, late, as usual... 
> 
> This zine was amazing to work on! A wonderful group of contributors and mods working together to create something beautiful. I really loved this project. 
> 
> Thank you, Isekai Mods, for allowing me to be involved!

The sky was a pool of inky black that touched each desert horizon. Thrown across it, a million stars, sparkling - and from here, unmoving, thrown across the universe with the facade of chaos.

Yuuri twisted a knob on the telescope and peered out, squinting one eye to open the other to the infinite. Then he turned a dial the radio he was holding. It crackled with the sound of nothing but low interference and occasional wisp of a radio station as a song drifted past.

He switched it to _transmitting_ and whispered, “Where are you?” Then he tilted his head back and said again, louder, “Where are you?!”

The question rose to meet nothing.

It was past midnight. The heat had long risen from the ground and there was only chalky cold. He ought to go home, leave behind the awful desire to continue this never-ending search.

When he would sleep tonight, he would dream of someone. Maybe not a human, but nothing inhuman. An entity, like a man, made of stars far from the ones that had sewn his own skin together. He would be colored in by moonbeams and starlight. 

It was terribly silly to dwell on. 

_ Where are you? What’s out there? _ The questions traced themselves in his coursework and lectures, leaving a threadwork of what-ifs and hopes.

Yuuri was merely a man lost to the stars.

..::TWO MONTHS EARLIER::..

The dusted wind blew straight into the cafe when the doors opened. Yuuri was hunched over grading his students’ tests, but paused to cover the top of his mug as another hot gust whirled inside. 

“Hello.”

Yuuri looked up.

A man stood before him. He wore sunglasses and a long beige trenchcoat despite the heat, and he loomed over Yuuri’s small table. Yuuri couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, so he wondered if the man was talking to someone else. He looked around but no one was paying attention.

“Hi?”

The man smiled. It was charming and genuine. 

“Do I know you?”

“I happened to notice this book.” He pointed to Yuuri’s class textbook on the table. _ Introduction to Physics. _ The authors were himself and several other professors. “May I look at it?”

Yuuri was halfway to answering a careful _ sure _ when the man dropped into the seat across from him and took it. He flipped through its pages, then settled somewhere in the book's center. Yuuri couldn’t see if he was reading or not. 

_ Maybe _he’d be attractive if Yuuri could just see his eyes. He tried to grade again, but the presence of the stranger weighed the space down. He felt like his papers and coffee and himself were tipping toward him.

_ \-- advanced than I expected. _

Yuuri frowned. He thought the man said something, but he was still, face hidden in the textbook.

_ I like how he’s just -- _

“Did you say something?”

The man’s face turned toward him. “No,” he said when a second passed. “I have a question about your theory on quantum entanglement here.”

“Well, it’s not my theory -”

“Have you considered a paradox within one’s own electromagnetic field?”

“That’s actually -- something I’ve been working on.” Yuuri was a little breathless from surprise.

He grinned. “I thought you were touching upon that here.” The man set the textbook down and pointed out a few lines of Yuuri’s own additions to the text.

“Are you an academic?” Yuuri asked, excitement rising in him. It was a familiar feeling he got when meeting a like-mind.

The man, in all his well-adorned mystery, took a light hold of his sunglasses and tilted them down to look over them enough to wink at Yuuri and say, “Something like that.”

Yuuri’s heart gave a valiant thud. He was sold.

They talked about physics, science, and the cosmos. The stranger pushed the boundaries of the quantum realm that Yuuri could grasp and then was teaching him. Despite how brilliant and smart this stranger was, Yuuri felt that he was holding back. It drove him a little mad. Moreso when the man would cock a grin or laugh a little admirable laugh at Yuuri’s hypotheses.

Who was he?

When he declared he should leave, Yuuri didn’t hesitate. Yet his face was hot and the back of his neck prickled.

“Could I -” Was he really doing this? “Could I get your number or something?”

The stranger - _ hell, he hadn’t even gotten his name! _ \- stood still. Those dark sunglasses watched Yuuri for a long time, during which Yuuri probably broke out into three cold sweats.

He thought he heard something again, like earlier. But it came through harsh and stressed as if hearing words through radio static and heartbeats. So clearly he was going insane.

Then with a quick, confident tilt of his head and a killer grin, the man answered, “Unfortunately, I don’t have one.” Then he turned and left, leaving only the desert wind to rush inside in his place and soar straight into Yuuri’s coffee.

~

He thought the first sound was that of his 8am alarm, weakly beckoning him to cross over to the waking world. Beyond his closed eyelids it was much darker than 8am’s light, but this was registered like a scant detail in a dream.

But then the light did come. Bright, it bursted against his eyelids and his alarm grew louder. He jolted upright this time, torn from the stubborn gnarls of sleep so fast his heart hammered in his chest. Light poured in from his windows, busting beyond curtains. Following it came a whirring sound. The windows glowed so brilliantly it seemed the panes might blow inward, and _that sound _-

Yuuri didn’t know what to do. This might be some crazy storm, so he started to reach for his phone, but the light pulsated and the sound trembled the house with its burgeoning hum. Yuuri only had the second to think, _ definitely not a storm, _ before the world bled back into an easy black.

~

Somehow the focused light didn’t wake him on its own, but when he did wake, it was under its glare and he squinted against it. He covered his face with an arm and blinked hard a few times, then tried to move his head but found he barely could. His body felt leaden. The arm he used to shield his eyes even trembled with muscle exhaustion.

“Hello. You are awake.”

The light had been from a metallic expenditure reaching down from the ceiling. He was maybe in some sort of medical facility. A hospital?

A red-haired young woman looked down on him. She didn’t look like a doctor, though Yuuri wasn’t sure - his brain was still emerging from its haze. The way the room was settling in around his senses felt wrong, and the way the lady was looking down on him was wrong, too.

She backed away and there was a clicking sound; the surface under him began to move, adjusting into a seat. So this was definitely a doctor’s office, right?

Yuuri was suddenly terrified he’d roll up to see half his body missing, but he was all there. The movement helped feeling drain back into more of his limbs and he managed to turn his head as he sat up.

This did not help his nerves.

This wasn’t like any doctor’s office he’d ever seen. The walls were sleek and translucent several centimeters deep, letting the light from the room penetrate them with prisms of color. Computer panels stuck out from the wall with strange readouts. Some made soft beeping sounds; beyond that there was only a low hum. It came from all around them like the room itself was a machine. 

The woman’s eyes were observing him with fierce scrutiny, though sometimes she broke her stare to use a tablet device. If his breath wasn’t already barely coming, he’d have gasped. The tablet had holographic images displayed. She was handling it with quick flicks of her fingers. 

Doors sliding open made Yuuri startle. A man entered, and he was terribly, heart-stoppingly familiar, though Yuuri couldn’t pinpoint why. He wanted to ask, beg what the hell was going on, but his voice still failed him.

No one spoke_ . _ There was something about the silence between these people, the sharpness of their stare, the methodical way they moved, that set Yuuri on edge. 

The man looked at the woman. Silence continued, yet room felt alive with discussion. It was unsettling. And then, suddenly, the woman said out loud, “What is your name?”

Yuuri paled, but somehow being directly questioned loosened his throat. “Yuuri.”

She nodded and glanced toward the newcomer. He was quite beautiful.

Silence pooled back in. Then, _ Yuuri. _

He heard his name, but the room was still quiet. 

_ Yuuri. _

He noticed the man was staring at him.

_ It looks like I reached you, Yuuri. My name is Viktor. I’m speaking with you through your mind. We’ve taken you from Earth, temporarily. _

“What.”

_ Viktor _cracked a smile. He looked excited, maybe proud.

_ We are a species from what you’ve named the Andromeda Galaxy. We have been studying Earth for 500 of Earth's sun cycles. We decided to finally make contact. _

That was the point Yuuri nearly passed out.

~

So they came from far away.

And they did that quite a lot.

Yuuri now had an eerie calm pressing on his nerves because they’d given him some sort of nerve relaxant. The others had left Viktor alone, and he’d briefed Yuuri on the supposed basics of their mission.

This was not the sort of abduction Yuuri heard through stories and movies. Viktor gave him water, explained their intent was to run a few diagnostics on the human body, ask some questions about human life, and then set him free.

Then he asked if this was “okay.”

His smile was charming; the way he spoke and spun his fingers across his holograms made Yuuri dizzy with a sense of great intelligence before him. So when Viktor paused to ask his permission to be tested on, he balked.

“What?”

“Do you consent to this?”

“I… have a choice?”

Viktor furrowed his brows and glanced at one of the glossy, deep walls, before saying, “Forcing you would create a bias in your answers and medical readouts.”

“I- uh.” Yuuri stared, feeling simple. “Okay? If I’m not going to be hurt…”

Viktor smiled and he settled into a seat. “What do you find to be your species’ greatest weakness?” He sat there, ready to type or mind-meld or _ whatever _Yuuri’s answers into his tablet. 

“I… you know, my answer isn’t necessarily correct, right? Whatever I say will be biased based on my experiences?”

“Fragmented cultures,” Viktor muttered and swiveled his hand through the hologram. Things shifted, changed color. “Divides.”

“Wait, that’s not my answer.”

“No, but it’s part of what your answer is.” Viktor smiled a smile that was somehow simple and beaming at the same time.

“I… guess you’re right.” Yuuri ran his hands up and down his lap. He couldn’t focus on Viktor’s smiling face, or the hologram, but the deep walls and machines around them weren’t welcoming either. So now he was supposed to deal with the pressure of representing Earth. 

_ … are cute. _

The words filled Yuuri’s head, though it sounded like it was coming from far away. It was muffled by a sense of… curiosity, maybe warmth?

_ … wonder if they’re all like that. _

Yuuri’s head snapped to Viktor. “What did you say?”

Viktor leaned back, lips parting in surprised, silent words. “I… didn’t say anything. Did you hear something?”

“Are you trying to communicate with me, uh…” He gestured between their heads. “You know.”

Viktor did something that surprised Yuuri then. His face deepened in color, and he hesitated. He’d been smooth and rehearsed. But now he was shooting eyes all around them at the walls and pulling back into his seat.

“Something must’ve slipped out,” he finally said.

“How does it work?”

Viktor glanced to the walls again before answering. Were they watching them from out there? “It’s uh, complicated, for you. But we know how to create… readable triggers in the electromagnetic field that entangle - ”

Yuuri’s eyes blew wide as the memory hit hard. “You’re the man from the cafe!” 

_ \-- they won’t be happy with the -- and I shouldn’t have -- _

Yuuri clutched his head. “Why do you keep putting words in my head? And who are you, have you been following me?”

The doors slid open with rapt timing. Viktor jumped up; the person who entered was calm, though their eyes were glaring straight at Viktor. He strode over in a straight line, arms behind his back to bring his posture up high. 

“Call me Plisetsky,” he said. “I’ll be completing your interview.”

A long pause followed in which _ Plisetsky _ bore holes into Viktor’s head with those eyes, and Yuuri realized they must be communicating. Though silly, he strained to listen, but heard nothing, and soon Viktor was bowing out of the room. With one last, long glance at Yuuri, the doors slid shut. 

It wasn’t until much, much later, when Yuuri had been put back inside his house and the mysterious drug wore off, that Yuuri shot up straight in his bed, sweating and nearly choked by his own hammering heart. “Aliens are real,” he gasped to himself. With that, all the emotion and shock he should’ve experienced earlier poured into him, along with the burning curiosity for the alien named Viktor. 

..::PRESENT::..

So, star-crossed, Yuuri stared through telescope lenses and tried to find the entanglement between him and Viktor through radio waves. He felt the expanse of the desert up his back and the weight of all the universe over his head and wondered how he’d find a single being drifting through all of it. Yet his heart begged him to hope.

It’d been two months since the encounter, and he still marveled at his short contact with Viktor. Viktor the extraterrestrial and how he’d talked to Yuuri for two hours about physics and science. He wanted to know more about Viktor. Viktor, the… _ what _?

He really didn’t know. If he could change that… he would give anything.

Sometimes he was there, haunting his dreams: he’d emerge from his subconscious tide and say, “Yuuri, can you hear me?” and “Yuuri, what is your opinion on quantum particle exchanges?”

Yuuri would try to respond. He’d open his mouth and with all his strength form the words, but nothing would come out, like he hadn’t taken a breath. This was especially common on nights Yuuri sat under the dark sky and vainly called for Viktor through static and stars.

It was silly, wasn’t it? To Viktor, likely to his entire species, Yuuri was probably just something to learn about and experiment on. They’d discovered a strange bug under a rock and wanted to learn a few quick facts.

Still - Yuuri blushed when he remembered asking for Viktor’s number in the cafe. Oh, and how he’d hesitated…

He climbed out of bed. Only streetlamps pushed light into the room. 

He dug through his duffel for the radio and then slid his bedroom window curtains apart to push it open. The desert night air was cool and dry, wafting past him like whispers of encouragement. 

The little radio echoed a fizzle when he turned it on. He closed his eyes and for the first time since trying to make contact, he thought of the feel of Viktor in his mind. Those moments of unintended intrusion, where thought and feeling brimmed and spilled out, reaching him. He’d thought of it plenty now and was confident he understood at least a little. Entanglement, heightened entanglement, _ paradoxes _...

He thought this to the transmitter, the radio waves, to Viktor’s mind -

_ Viktor. If you’re - if you’re looking for me, I’m here. _

He listed his coordinates, the angle of the sun to his point, the random things he could think of. He listed it all and hoped they touched someone.

Then his eyes opened and he took a breath. Yuuri shut the window, put the radio away, and crawled back into bed. He didn’t think much upon what he’d just done, fearful doing so would hinder his message’s journey. 

Eventually, he slept.

Until he didn’t.

Yuuri was awakened by a thumping on his door. At first it merged with his dreams and he ignored it. But the source thwacked again and again, in rapid, patternless rhythms, and Yuuri sat up when he realized there was someone there.

He checked the time on his phone. 4:32 AM.

Nothing good could come from a call this late at night.

The person knocked again.

He crawled off the bed and moved through the apartment. The knocking continued, and Yuuri’s heart began to pound at the possibilities rolling through him mind. This could be an emergency. Someone could be hurt, or dead, or something…

Yuuri turned his phone light on and flashed it toward the door. He wanted the secured bolt to ease his nerves but it didn’t do much.

_ KNOCK KNOCK. _

Yuuri looked through the peephole, and his heart fell straight through his core in a sharp, deadly dive. The bolt made a quick hitch as he snapped it back and Yuuri swung the door open.

“Viktor!” he gasped.

And the man himself dove into the room and slammed the door. He was wearing the coat from the cafe day. His chest heaved as he caught his breath.

Yuuri rushed to turn the light on as he asked, “Viktor, are you okay?”

Viktor’s eyes flickered to Yuuri, and Yuuri saw something there he rather liked, but then Viktor was rushing into the apartment saying, “Where’s a window?”

He stopped halfway into the room and spun around. There were windows around, but Viktor seemed unaware of them with their drawn curtains.

He whirled back to Yuuri. “I need a view of the sky.”

“Ah, right. Bedroom window is best.” He pointed the way and Viktor tore off. Yuuri chased, a sense of unreality pushing in from all sides. Viktor was here? Already?

Viktor was pressing his hands against the glass and staring at the sky, head angled sharply to look up past the glass.

“I can open it,” Yuuri offered.

“No! This is fine.” Viktor grabbed the curtains. His hands slid along their fabrics while he looked at them, brows furrowed, before dragging them shut. “This is fine.”

They stood there. Yuuri’s room felt small and inferior with Viktor standing there, a being of other beings despite how outwardly he appeared human. 

Finally he had to ask, “Viktor, what are you doing here?”

His eyes landed fully on Yuuri, and he smiled in a way that made Yuuri’s heart pound. There was no trace of false formality or coyness - it was just… Viktor, perhaps?

“You finally answered,” he said. “I’ve been calling to you so long. So I came, or -” He glanced to the window, then the ceiling, even. “I ran. I’m not supposed to be here. In fact I’ve been in trouble since the interview. But I had to see you again. Thank you for telling me where to find you.”

Yuuri was a flurry of emotion. Most were his own, but he felt something else there, and he recognized its source. There was a flowering of someone else’s thoughts and feelings at the edge of his mind, scraping against his heart, unsteady but there.

Viktor watched Yuuri. He seemed to understand, and maybe he felt something from Yuuri too?

… Oh. Yuuri’s face reddened furiously as he thought of all the ideas he may have unintentionally passed to Viktor in invisible, matterless wavelengths.

“I think that’s something to be explored, don’t you?” Viktor asked.

Oh, Yuuri could’ve died realizing that was a _ response. _ But he said quickly, “Yes.”

Yuuri could drown in Viktor’s expression. He could also die right now as Viktor stepped forward and, carefully, took his hand.

“This is an all right gesture, from what I understand, if I were to lead you somewhere?”

“Some… where?” Blood was either completely absent or all too present in Yuuri’s body. He was a swish and swash of stuff that kept him from comprehending anything.

“I have a small starship I came on. They haven’t followed me so I think I effectively hacked the navi-system so they can’t find me. I thought I’d give you a small tour…”

Small starship, small tour, Viktor…

It was too much.

Viktor kind of made a step forward, maybe to start leading Yuuri to the _ small starship, _ and Yuuri was being hounded with interference of someone else’s exhilaration. So Yuuri, often none too bold, intercepted Viktor’s path with a kiss.

It would be more horrible if Viktor didn’t follow through and kiss right back. There was a crackle in Yuuri’s brain, something sizzling out or combusting, he couldn’t tell. Then they pulled back and he had enough sense to gasp and say, “I’m so sorry! I - that’s - I wasn’t thinking, I don’t even know if that’s normal for your -”

“Yuuri.” Viktor gripped his hand tighter. “Save it for the stars.”

A little dazed in the best sort of way, Yuuri nodded and let himself be led from his apartment. They would fly and talk and compare species and read each other’s minds and do other normal first date things. It all made sense.

As he was pulled by Viktor out into the night, he muttered a belated response, “I am _ quite _fond of stars.”

**Author's Note:**

> existing on [twitter](http://twitter.com/neptunedemon/) & [tumblr](http://skateonme.tumblr.com/)
> 
> thanks for reading!!


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